Daguerreotype
by TwinEnigma
Summary: Blood is the daguerreotype of will." Kakashi Hatake and Obito Uchiha, post-Kakashi Gaiden. He calls himself Kakashi Hatake, but he's uncertain that is accurate.
1. I

**Daguerreotype**

_By TwinEnigma_

Disclaimer: I do not own the Naruto characters. If I did, do you honestly think I'd be writing fanfics?

AN: Prompt for a fic based on a Hellsing-theme of choice.

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"Blood is the daguerreotype of will." - _Junior Warrant Officer Schrödinger_, _Hellsing_

I.

Kakashi sometimes is aware of another presence within him and sometimes he is distinctly not himself.

He heard somewhere blood is the daguerreotype of will and idly wonders if an eye counts.

Obito doesn't feel like himself anymore.

Sometimes, he wakes up and his hands are too big, his reactions sluggish and strange. People call him by Kakashi's name and he doesn't argue – its fun to be in his treammate's shoes, beloved and acknowledged as a genius.

He calls himself Kakashi Hatake, but he's uncertain that is accurate. In dreams, Sakumo lingers between the shattered and jumbled memories, and repeats the same question each night: _"Who are you?"_

From time to time, Obito wonders how he survived that battle and what sort of super-jutsu Rin had come up with to save him. It is only when he finally sees the memorial stone that Obito realizes he has not survived at all and he is transfixed.

Kakashi can't tell where he ends and Obito begins. He dreams of the fan, high on his back, of katon, his father's cooling blood and the hiss of white chakra in his hands.

They are, perhaps, most true to themselves when they take up the ANBU mask.

Strangely, there is never any real disagreement between them. The etching is so deep, it is beyond combating.

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AN: Daguerreotypes are an early form of photography, wherein a permanent unique picture is made.


	2. II

**Daguerreotype**

_By TwinEnigma_

AN: For disclaimer, see first chapter.

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II.

Kakashi dislikes Team 7 from the start – they are young, loud, and spoiled children of peace, bearing an unsettling familiarity to the dead and gone.

Obito is amused by the genin. They have spunk and nostalgia washes over him at the sight of their antics. He wonders if his adorable little genin will try and see under their mask and giggles as he turns the pages of the latest installment of Icha Icha Paradise.

Kakashi tells his students about the memorial stone and that his teammates are all dead because the situation in his head is too complicated to explain to anyone.

He often doesn't know quite how to explain it himself.

Obito teaches them in his own loose way, haphazard and absentmindedly evasive. After all, he can't hold their hands forever and they need to learn how to make the most of very little. Good ninja must learn to see underneath the underneath.

Kakashi would prefer a slightly more direct approach, but he and Obito both know that it's better this way. There's no need to rush these kids and it'll take more time to figure out in what areas exactly each one's strength is outside of the Academy reports. Already, they know that they have their work cut out for them.

Naruto could and will eventually rapidly excel beyond their capacity to teach him, and both know it from the start. But the boy's basics are deplorable and, at the moment, it's severely handicapping his potential.

Obito likes his attitude and Kakashi idly wonders what the boy would have been like if the Kyuubi had never attacked.

They remember Kushina and both decide that Naruto would be exactly the same.

Sasuke is intelligent, a born prodigy in his own right, and would, with encouragement and his bloodline, become a very skilled ninja. His file, on the other hand, reads out as a ticking time bomb of rage and aggression, likely to be channeled at everyone and everything in his way, and his social skills are quite literally equal to those of a brick wall.

Obito thinks his little relative could use a surgical procedure to remove the stick from his ass and Kakashi agrees.

Fixation on the past can only end poorly.

Delicate little Sakura is so much like Rin that if they believed in reincarnation, they would both swear that she had come back for another chance. But Sakura is stronger and more determined in many ways, and she has unheard of chakra control for her age. Her silly little girlhood crush and her violent temper make her unpredictable and flighty.

Something great will come of her, but they are not the right teacher to bring forth that greatness and both of them know that.

Obito thinks perhaps they should show her one of Rin's healing jutsu and see what happens. Kakashi is certain she will do Rin proud.

Obito likes his genin, in spite of their faults.

Kakashi, reluctantly, admits that they're not so bad.


End file.
